Perhaps the legendary loyalty and never-missing-an-orphan-outing had been a bit...exaggerated?
Or maybe the Orphan Club had got together to persuade MacGarioch to sit this one out, because the police were after him?
Ormaybe, Logan had just got this whole thing wrong?
It’d hardly be the first time.
Probably wouldn’t be the last, either.
He checked his watch – ten minutes till showtime.
Come on, come on, come on, come on...
Logan pressed the button. ‘He’s going to turn up eventually. Charles MacGariochnevermisses these things.’
Hopefully.
LVIII
The rusty sledgehammer clanged down against Natasha’s chain again, skimming off the metal tochuddddinto the concrete.
Christ knew how long she’d been banging away with the bloody thing: twenty minutes? An hour? Seven and a halfyears? And all she had to show for it were a few flattened dents on a couple of links, and some flakes chipped off the solid grey lump in the bucket.
Didn’t help that she couldn’t get a decent swing on the bastard – having to hold it halfway down the shaft in an awkward hand-over-hand grip and do a rapid bow towards her anchor instead. Which made aiming the pockmarked hammer-head almost impossible.
And now her arms burned, and her legs throbbed, and every muscle in her backached.
After the blazing light of the great outdoors, the barn was heavy with gloom. At least it was cooler than her prison, being a lot bigger, and only having a couple of filthy skylights in the corrugated-asbestos roof.
Its far end was stacked with triangular trusses and prefab stud walls for some sort of build-your-own-house kit, but going by the cobwebs, dust, and layers of mouse droppings, they’d been here for along, long time.
The next twenty percent was given over to pallets of bricksand stuff that could probably have lived outside, and bags of cement that definitely couldn’t.
And the final thirty percent had been turned into a workshop, with a table saw and a mitre saw and a bandsaw and a bench press and all that kind of malarkey. But when she tried them, nothing happened. Same with the light switches. So, either everything was knackered, or the power was off.
A bunch of hand tools hung on the wall above a long workbench that looked like it’d been cobbled together from old pallets, but they were furry with rust, and none of them were any good at hacking through bloodychains.
The sledgehammer’s metal headspangggged off the links one last time – making not the slightest bit of difference – and Natasha dropped the useless thing, letting it clatter to the concrete floor.
‘Piece ofshit!’ Every single word a mix of sandpaper and broken glass as she collapsed back against the workbench, breathing hard. Sweat stinging her eyes. Head pounding away inside this stupid fucking gimp mask.
She hauled in a big shuddering lungful of dusty air and bellowed it out again...
Then sagged all the way down, till her bum rested on the gritty floor.
Slumped sideways.
Keeling over till she was lying on her side at the very end of her chain – mask pressed against the concrete.
Going to die here.
Going to never see her little girl again.
Going to get dragged out and dumped in a shallow grave then buried alive.
Tears mingled with the sweat.
Be better to kill herself and have done with it. Deny the bastard the satisfaction.
